Holding up
by GreenGreyBlack
Summary: He is familiar with death, it wasn't something he didn't sign up, it was part of the pact.


_**Check out Evanscence's Hello while reading, the song is inspiring .**_

_**R&R**_

* * *

_**Holding up**_

She died before his very eyes.

He was restrained when her former mentor just slashed the blade across her neck, a quick, least painful death for his best apprentice, like he said.

Blood oozed pints and pints, her eyes full of confusion and terror, full of grief while slowly light creeps out of them.

His mind whizzes around with the image laying before him, she seems vulnerable and for the first time helpless, not just her, both of them.

Her body just shudders one last time,

She is gone.

The scene lasts for a minute at most, after which his teammates arrive.

Amidst the blood, the chaos, and fight, all he could do was to hold onto her body tight and whisper soothing words, as though it matters, he whispers everything she needs to know, he whispers what he knows she will hear.

* * *

All is done,

They're transported to the base,

Next day she's buried.

* * *

Unlike expected, he doesn't go catatonic.

He doesn't go through the famous 5 stages of grief.

He saw it with his own eyes; he buried her with his own two hands for god's sake.

No chance at denial.

No hope at an escape, at all.

He keeps an emotionless façade in front of them,

He holds up well and doesn't break in front of them, instead he stares their sympathetic, apologetic ,full of pity looks down.

He tells him to stop tiptoeing around him, to stop treating him like a maniac, to stop treating him like a thing that is broken and needs fixture.

* * *

He works his heart out, mission after mission.

He wears himself off, cause he knows the world wouldn't stop because of anything, because he knows the world won't stop because she is … gone.

Fury sits him down, asks him to take a time out, which he politely refuses.

He tells him he is familiar with death, he tells him it wasn't something he didn't sign up for, he tells him it was part of the pact.

Fury pushes him further, he calmly tells him

"If I take this time out, I might blow up the whole bloody earth, the whole S.H.I.E.L.D.S, I might set up myself and everything on fire"

He doesn't push it further.

* * *

The team is concerned.

Everyone thinks he feels what he feels, and he hates them for that; because No one remotely does.

Sure, the thought of losing pepper in a similar way is crippling to Stark,

Sure, Thor and Bruce know parting is hard,

Sure, Steve knows how such a hurricane coming all in a surprise, can shake a person to the core,

Yet still it never happened to them, everyone they knew and loved was alive, safe and sound.

* * *

Nobody knows that he sees her every night,

Whilst sober or in his drunken stupor.

He pictures her in her most vivid image, her most serene aura.

She'd sit; they'd talk and laugh, courtesy of old days.

He doesn't know what he sees; maybe it is a ghost, maybe a hallucination.

He knows his sanity is detoriating, yet just the illusion keeps him going.

* * *

Time goes by, he pretends to act like his former self, and they think he has moved on.

Some of his co-workers try to sneak under his skin; he shuts them off rather…..aggressively.

Yet they don't seem to back off.

Fury pairs him off with this new agent called Mockingbird.

They grow close

He sees a hint of Natasha, a bare hint.

It is gone fast, however.

She isn't Natasha, she never was, will never be.

He tells her to go away,

He tells her he'll string her,

He tells her he will be unfair if he lets her hang with a ghost of a man.

"I am trying to help, do me a favour and try to help yourself" she tells him.

He falls into bed with her.

Afterwards, He felt guilty, he felt like a cheater.

He asks Fury to separate them.

He tells her to leave him alone

"Fine, wallow in precious memories alone, cling to the past and linger onto a silhouette" she tells him before she leaves.

* * *

He didn't see Natasha since that unfortunate night.

He thinks it is punishment for his ultimate betrayal, he thinks it is pure justice for falling into temptation.

She never liked partners other than him.

She never liked sharing her belongings.

* * *

He keeps working like there is no tomorrow.

The team comes across Natasha's mentor.

Ironically, he shoots Hawkeyes by an arrow.

Still they manage to take him out.

They give the hawk the honour of the final blow,

He grazes through the thin ugly neck with a blunt knife, before he collapses.

He was shot by a venomous arrow,

Anonymous venom.

He lies in the medical wing with fever.

He sees her for the first time in 6 months.

She stays with him.

She tells him he is forgiven for everything.

She tells him he'll be fine.

She tells him both their ledgers were lost, forgotten.

He tells her to stay.

She tells him she'll come back for him.

He keeps whispering her name like a mantra.

* * *

"Will he be fine?" Steve asks

"We are doing our best; we are trying to find an antidote, he is lucky to have held on that far, maybe his body will break it down but still we can't promise you anything."

They stay with him for the following 3 nights,

The scene before them was heartbreakingly tragic.

He keeps looping out her name.

The temperature still up, despite the antipyretic.

* * *

The forth day, he gets better.

He stays relatively well for the next day.

They hang out with him in the hospital; Tony manages to even sneak beer, doughnuts and pop tarts in there.

He laughs his heart out with them

And wipes out Thor's pop tarts much to the later's dismay.

They leave him to his slumber and rest this night.

This night, she comes for him.

He doesn't wake up next day.


End file.
